Printed letters, January 22, 2013

By
Staff
Monday, January 21, 2013

I am concerned about the plans to drill for natural gas near my home east of Mesa. I have witnessed how the air quality has declined along the Colorado River near Rifle as the gas industry has expanded recently. It only takes one’s sense of smell to know that our clean mountain air is endangered by activities related to gas drilling.

The gas industry repeats its claim that there has never been a documented case of water pollution attributed to fracking. It really doesn’t matter to them as their lobbyists in Washington have purchased exemption from the Clean Water and Air acts.

It matters to me as my family and community will be left with the potential for our water to be tainted by the fracking fluids as most of these fluids with their chemical additives are left underground. The gas industry would have me trust that because of the depth of its drilling there is no possibility of polluting underground water sources. I have no trust for this industry that refuses to even make public the list of chemicals that it injects into the ground.

Clean air and water are invaluable and should not be sacrificed in this drive for “energy independence.” Natural gas is also a valuable resource; it is a gift for us and for the generations of the future. In the drive to enrich corporations and shareholders, however, we are allowing questionable drilling techniques to be used with little consideration for our children or for the natural world.

GARY WEIDNER

Mesa

Armed employees could

avert another tragedy

I understand the emotional need to take some action to prevent further tragedies like that at Sandy Hook, but we need to exercise reason over emotion in fashioning a solution. Outlawing hunting guns that look like military weapons won’t solve the problem. There will still be hunting guns that don’t look like military weapons that are just as lethal. Limiting the size of magazines won’t solve the problem. It takes only a few seconds to insert a fresh magazine into a gun.

Universal background checks would make it more difficult for mentally disturbed people to get their hands on guns if a national database were established that prohibited selling guns to the mentally ill, but this would require a radical change in our current privacy laws.

Armed guards in our schools might be a deterrent, but a guard would be the first target of disturbed individuals bent on taking as many lives as possible before taking their own. Don’t forget that Columbine had an armed guard on campus, and that did not deter Harris and Klebold. The guard was not at the right place at the right time. And don’t forget that they used shotguns and handguns, not “assault” weapons.

The school principal and a psychologist at Sandy Hook, although unarmed, confronted the shooter but were instantly killed. One wonders what the outcome would have been had they been armed. They were at the right place at the right time to change the outcome.

Properly trained and licensed school employees who, on a volunteer basis, are discretely armed would not be a threat to the general population and would be a powerful deterrent to another tragedy such as Columbine or Sandy Hook.

RICHARD L. UDD

Cedaredge

Rearden’s life shows

power of motherly love

On Jan. 6 The Daily Sentinel ran an article about the death of a lady from South Carolina who was 114 years old. Her name was Marnie Rearden.

She had raised 11 children. She had taught school and had done volunteer work for the county in which she lived, helping get more children into schools. She wasn’t a president of a bank or of a college or anything, her daughters said, but they also said they were just as proud of her role as a mother and a homemaker.

She was married in 1920 to her husband, Oacy. They were married for 59 years and together raised their family.

So today, what level of importance does our society hold as that of a mother? A job of caring, feeding and loving the very young. Of proper bringing up and teaching and instilling goodness and self-guidance within the child. A molding of a life. To bring up properly the future caretakers of the land in which we live. This is a job of the highest, and Rearden was a true hero.

So, it starts at home with a mother.

GALEN W. SMITH

Fruita

Most U.S. citizens pay

no income tax at all

James Reimer’s letter stating “increasing taxes affect everyone, more or less, equally” is a statement looking for comment.

How equal can it be for the 52 percent of all Americans who pay no income taxes and the 48 percent who pay for all the taxes?

Those who work pay for those who don’t.

R.M. SHERMAN

Grand Junction

Headline on deaths

appalling, sensational

I, too, am appalled by the sensational headline Thursday, referring to the tragic deaths of the two young boys near Powderhorn. There seems to be a growing trend with this paper that I don’t like.

What has happened to decency and integrity often viewed in newspapers long gone by the wayside and replaced by the trend that the Sentinel sank to in this headline?